U.S. Pat. No. 6,104,932 discloses a mobile radio network, in which further to a request from a GMLC (gateway mobile location center) a home location register HLR notifies the GMLC of an address of the MSC/VLR, in the service area of which a mobile station MS is located.
It is known from the document 3GPP 23.271 that in response to a location request (request for location-related data, e.g. the location of the mobile radio subscriber) from an LCS client (location services client) to a GMLC (gateway mobile location center) relating to the switching device MSC/SGSN, via which a subscriber in a mobile radio network can currently be reached, the GMLC requests the address of a switching device currently responsible for a subscriber from a home location register (HLR). A GMLC-R5 (version “R5” GMLC or even older version) sends an SRI request (SRI=send routing information, such as for example a MAP destination address, etc.) to a subscriber database (HLR-R4/R5) of the mobile radio network for the address of a switching device (MSC, SGSN, etc. of a subscriber database (VLR) there), via which a subscriber (MS) (characterized by an MSISDN or IMSI, etc.) can currently be reached, whereupon the home location register (HLR/R4/R5) sends back in a response (Ack(SGSN)/Ack/MSC)) data representing the (MAP/ISDN/etc.) address of a switching device (MSC/SGSN) to the location request device (GMLC-R5), which then sends data relating to the location request via an Lg interface to the switching device (MSC/SGSN) specified to it by the HLR for further handling there (determination of position of current MS position and/or other services) (FIG. 2).
The development of a home GMLC would make it possible (FIG. 3) to transmit the address data of a switching device (MSC/SGSN) or an H-GMLC in the home network of a subscriber in response to a request from a first GMLC (R-GMLC) to a home data base, with the option of being able to verify and take into account privacy data stored there in the H-GMLC relating to privacy functions, etc. The data is transmitted from the H-GMLC (in so far as this is expedient based on the privacy data of the subscriber) for example to a switching device (MSC/SGSN) in the network visited by the subscriber or a home network for further handling. With this variation, however, the problem would arise that an older version GMLC (e.g. GMLR-R5) and HLR would not be able to process details of the further GMLC (H-GMLC R6) handling the location request further according to FIG. 3.